From: "Jean-Claude Guédon" <[log in to unmask]> Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2016 13:10:57 -0500 Sorry for a slow answer, but here are my remarks, below, in the body of Mark Seeley's text. Jean-Claude Guédon Professeur titulaire Littérature comparée Université de Montréal ******* Le mercredi 09 mars 2016 à 19:30 -0500, LIBLICENSE a écrit : From: "Seeley, Mark (ELS-CMA)" <[log in to unmask]> Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2016 12:43:31 +0000 Replying to Professor Guédon: MS: Best of all possible worlds? No, we do not live in utopia-- I was suggesting that when thinking about reforms and changes it is always wise to fully weigh and consider benefits and costs. Of course I am prejudiced towards thinking that the mechanism of delivering journal articles to researchers is well served by the current system, including the digital and online enhancements and improvements. Those may depends on the Internet, but they still require investments in platforms, software and systems to make such investments useful and operable. JC: 1. The best of all possible worlds is not equivalent to utopia. It is closer to the principle of sufficient reason. 2. I am glad to see that you admit being prejudiced in favour of the present system. That is precisely what "the best of all possible worlds" argument would predict. 3. That investments, etc., are required is an obvious fact of life. But maintaining a profit rate of 35-40% does need some explanation beyond the "whatever the market can bear" argument. MS: I fail to understand the comment about Gold OA not involving author-side payments-- perhaps Prof. Guédon is making the point that in some cases funding agencies or institutions themselves pay such charges-- or to note that in some instances the fees are waived-- which is why I use the broader "supply side" description-- to contrast it with the "user side" which is about subscriptions/transactional accesss (document delivery, document rental, etc). JC: The "supply side" vocabulary conflates many different situations which should not be conflated. There is a great deal of difference between Elsevier offering OA articles after the author or some proxy pays a hefty sum for the "privilege", while pocketing a very significant profit, and the offering of OA articles produced gratis because the publishing platform is supported by public funds. A similar distinction could be made with charitable funds (e.g. Wellcome). The difference becomes even clearer if one thinks that the whole research cycle is incomplete without a publishing phase. If, as is the case, most of the research costs are paid up by governments all over the planet, even in the US, why is it so difficult to accept that the cost of publishing - 1-2% of research costs - should not be supported by public funds as well? A majority of titles in OA are gratis for the authors. So, this is not just "in some cases"; it is in the majority of cases. MS: Surveys have demonstrated that researchers at most institutions report significant increases in access, see the 2015 "STM Report" http://www.stm-assoc.org/2015_02_20_STM_Report_2015.pdf which notes the increase in reading in section 2.10 (citing various reports from Tenopir et al) and increase in access from surveys in section 2.19 citing ARL data and related reports. This is not to minimize the impact of economics, budget crises of one kind or another, etc-- but the long-term trends suggest a significant increase in access for most. JC: Ah! The "best of all possible worlds" argument again! MS: By "fast developing countries" I mean of course countries like China and Russia that have significant economic resources but sometimes claim that they should be regarded as "developing" markets. JC: And these countries, that also harbour immense pockets of poverty, should spend their money on feeding Elsevier's desire for hefty profits? This is where strategies such as Scielo in latin America begin to make a lot of sense for these countries. MS: Yes of course from a business perspective I will use words like "markets"-- I also understand that scholarlship involves communities and networks, as noted in my first comment that is the way scholarly publishing has to work to be successful. JC: The point here is that scientific communication is not a process that naturally falls in the ambit of commerce. It took some rather special and strange contexts to transform scientific communication into a lucrative business for a few. The emergence of a "core science" concept, splitting world science into "what counts" and "what does not count" rather than admit the existence of a gradual transition from the best to the worst has been crucial here. It allowed to create the conditions for an inelastic market - a situation first noticed by Robert Maxwell. It was made possible by the modus operandi of the Science Citation Index. Maxwell knew this so well that he went so far as to sue Garfield to try prying the SCI away from him. Later, Maxwell's press, Pergamon, was acquired by Elsevier and, lo and behold, Maxwell's dream of holding both journals and SCI began to re-emerge with the creation of Scopus. Nil novi sub sole! MS: Yes sadly I admit that the US changed its own copyright laws when it decided it was a net producer of copyright content and therefore this was in its economic self-interest. I would have preferred a more "natural rights" thinking, but the approach in the US and I believe the UK is more on the economics side. JC: Indeed, very much like yours, actually (see above: "yes of course, from a business perspective... etc.) *******